Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour, also known as Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour, is a 2016 special edition remake of Duke Nukem 3D, originally released in 1996. The remake includes all content from Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, but it adds new levels, enemies, a weapon, and several special features.
New levels
Alien World Order
Main Article: Alien World Order
World Tour includes a new fifth episode known as Alien World Order. The episode was designed by Allen Blum and Richard “Levelord” Gray, both of whom designed all the levels in the original Duke Nukem 3D. The new levels include:
- High Times, based in Amsterdam
- Red Ruckus, based in Moscow
- Bloody Hell, based in London
- Mirage Barrage, based in Giza
- Tour de Nukem, based in Paris
- Golden Carnage, based in San Francisco
- Hollywood Inferno, based in Hollywood
- Prima Arena, a secret level based in Rome
Faces of Death
Main Article: Faces of Death
As a special bonus, the classic level Faces of Death can now be completed normally as a secret level in L.A. Meltdown. Faces of Death appeared as a Dukematch level in the classic Duke Nukem 3D, but it could also be reached during the singleplayer campaign by exploiting cheats and glitches. However, the level did not contain an exit button, so it could not be completed. In World Tour, a secret exit button is now accessible on The Abyss and will take the player directly to Faces of Death without requiring the use of cheats. Faces of Death also now includes an exit button, so it can be completed normally during solo playthroughs.
New enemies
Main Article: Enemies (DN3D)
World Tour includes four new enemies:
- Firefly Troopers, which can fly, shrink themselves, and fire flamethrowers
- Overlord Sentries, which are miniature versions of the Overlord
- Cycloid Sentries, which are miniature versions of the Cycloid Emperor
- A new final boss, the Cycloid Incinerator
 Firefly Trooper |
 Overlord Sentry |
 Cycloid Sentry |
 Cycloid Incinerator |
The Firefly Trooper was created using alternate sprites for the Assault Trooper that were scrapped before the 1996 release of Duke Nukem 3D. These alternate sprites were publicly known as far back as 1996, when one sprite was accidentally leaked on the back cover of the Duke Nukem 3D Screen Saver & Entertainment Pack.
New weapon
Main Article: Incinerator
World Tour features a new weapon known as the Incinerator. The Incinerator resembles the Freezethrower, but it launches fiery projectiles instead of ice. These fiery projectiles burn enemies and coalesce into pools of lava on the ground. The Incinerator shares the same number assignment as the Freezethrower, analogous to how the Shrinker shares a number assignment with the Expander.
The Incinerator was inspired by the Flamethrower that appeared in early prototypes but was scrapped before the 1996 release of Duke Nukem 3D.
New commentary
Main Article: 20th Anniversary Developer Commentary
World Tour features developer commentary by Randy Pitchford, Allen Blum, Richard "Levelord" Gray, Keith Schuler, and Roger Kort. In total, there are 206 snippets of audio commentary scattered throughout the levels. There is an option in the game that allows the player to toggle the commentary on or off.
New engine
A team of programmers led by Roger Kort updated the Build engine — which used unique rendering techniques that foreshadowed modern ray casting and portal rendering in order to create 2.5D worlds that were perceived as fully 3D — and reworked it to render the game's levels as true 3D polygonal models, allowing the developers to add dynamic lighting and ambient occlusion. As part of this change, the new engine converts the game's classic parallax skies into 3D skyboxes. In the developer commentary, Kort touts that the new engine behaves more "like you would expect any modern first-person shooter" to behave, particularly because it avoids the distortions that accompany 2.5D graphics when tilting the camera up and down.
An option in the game allows for toggling between the classic and modern renderers.
New audio
A new soundtrack for Alien World Order was composed by Lee Jackson, original composer for the game's 1996 release. In addition, Duke's one-liners have been re-recorded by voice actor Jon St. John, and some of the sound effects have been updated.
New rewind feature
Upon dying, a new playback feature has been added to the game that allows the player to scroll through a moment-by-moment replay of their performance on the level. The player is then able to choose any scene from the playback reel and rewind to that point. This allows the player to resume from the middle of a level without relying on manually saved games. An option in the game allows the player to toggle this feature on or off.
The rewind feature is automatically disabled if the player uses cheat codes, and it remains disabled even after any cheat codes are turned off. The rewind feature is only re-enabled once all cheat codes have been turned off and the player has either reached the next level or restarted the current level.
New software bugs
World Tour contains a few known software bugs not found in other versions of Duke Nukem 3D:
- The newly added dynamic lighting effects (see New engine above) can sometimes be seen from the opposite side of opaque walls.
- If a Shark is frozen using the Freezethrower, then it becomes invincible, even after it is unfrozen.
- If a boss (e.g., the Overlord) or mini-boss (e.g., an Overlord Sentry) is reduced to zero health using the Incinerator, then it becomes invincible.
- The Cycloid Incinerator will mistakenly fire its flamethrower from a long-range distance, even though its flamethrower is a short-range weapon.
- If an enemy is eaten by a Protozoid Slimer, then that enemy will count towards the "Enemies Remaining" statistic instead of the "Enemies Killed" statistic on the level-end screen.
- If cheat codes are used to turn off enemies and subsequently turn them back on, then enemy corpses will have collision boxes as though they are still alive, creating invisible obstacles.
- When approaching the Battlelord's spaceship on The Abyss, the audio clip associated with the humming ambiance of the spaceship does not loop correctly and results in a memory leak. Slightly before the audio clip finishes playing, the next audio clip in the loop will begin playing simultaneously. Eventually, numerous audio clips can be heard playing simultaneously, producing a loud roar. This can drastically reduce the game's frame rate and even cause the game to crash.
- Because the auto-aim feature now affects the "use" action, some switches and Access Card panels are difficult to use while the auto-aim feature is enabled. In the developer commentary, Allen Blum tells Roger Kort that the bug impacted his approach to level design for Alien World Order. In particular, he was forced to use a "shootable" switch on the boat on Golden Carnage because he could not get other types of switches to work in that location. (NOTE: The auto-aim feature can be disabled in the in-game menu.)
Other bugs were corrected with a patch released November 2, 2016 (see patch notes).
Continuing into the 2020s, Gearbox Software still maintains an online submission form for reporting bugs and other technical issues with the game, though no patch notes have been released since 2016 (link to submission form).
Trivia
- The Small Medkit, Large Medkit, and Portable Medkit have all had their sprites updated in this version of the game such that the symbolic red cross has been replaced with a symbol of a red and white pill. This was done because the International Committee of the Red Cross had previously filed lawsuits against other game developers for using the red cross symbol, which is not public domain.
- Pressing the "Next Weapon" or "Previous Weapon" buttons will display a weapon selection HUD that is unique to this version of the game. This new feature has been criticized for adding an unnecessary delay between weapon selection and weapon switching, during which enemies can still fire at the player. Although this delay can be avoided by simply pressing assigned keys for each weapon on a keyboard (e.g., the number keys), it cannot be avoided when playing with a controller.
- All levels from the original four episodes of the Atomic Edition have had their map files modified in World Tour. In almost all cases, this was only done to accommodate the new dynamic lighting effects. However, in at least one case, a more practical change was made: On Hollywood Holocaust, there is now a switch between the cinema screen and curtains that allows trapped players to reopen the curtains.
- The multiplayer-only map, Dukematch Level 1, was updated to include the Incinerator in this version of the game. However, the level can no longer be accessed using the "dnscotty" cheat, and it cannot be accessed from the multiplayer setup menu, even though the map is included as "E1L8.MAP" in the game's files.
- User maps from outside the Steam workshop can be played by first copying them into the game's root directory and then loading them through the in-game console. The console can be opened by pressing the backtick (`) key, and maps can then be loaded by entering "map" followed by a space ( ) and then the name of the map file. The console is insensitive to file extensions and does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase characters.
- There is unused data in the game's files for an enemy that would have been a smaller, weaker version of the Alien Queen. Some of the unused code also appeared in Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, but the enemy was coded differently, suggesting it was updated but again scrapped. This would make the "Alien Queen Sentry" the only enemy that was twice created and scrapped in the game's development history.
- The World Tour developers iterated on the source code from the Xbox Live Arcade version of Duke Nukem 3D, as opposed to the original Windows/DOS release of the Atomic Edition or the later Steam release of the Megaton Edition. This explains why the game includes the rewind feature, which was first introduced in the Xbox Live Arcade version. It has been speculated that the reason for doing this was to avoid a situation in which Gearbox Software might become potentially liable for decades of back pay to developers who had volunteered on open source projects like JFDuke3D, which served as the basis for much of the Megaton Edition, or EDuke32, which also contributed some of its source code to the Megaton Edition.
- In a May 6, 2020 interview with LoveLaughLeslie, CEO Randy Pitchford revealed that Gearbox Software had strongly debated re-releasing World Tour to be repackaged with the Duke It Out in D.C. and Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach expansions. Pitchford stated, "I keep putting my thumb on that scale," but Pitchford was apparently butting heads with Steve Gibson of the Gearbox Publishing division, which had deemed the expansions borderline "sexist and racist." Pitchford added, "I don't want to censor it," implying that Gibson's team would only publish the expansions if censored. Although Pitchford left open the possibility of a censored release, he ultimately acknowledged the publishing team's moral opposition and did not force them to publish the game, conceding, "it's not exactly the Duke that I remember." Pitchford quickly clarified his statement by adding "we stand behind" everything in Duke Nukem 3D and Duke Nukem Forever.
External links
- Official Steam Page (via Steam)
- Official Portal on GearboxSoftware.com (via Gearbox Software)